Stocks advanced Wednesday as investors resumed buying after a one-day sell-off, purchasing technology and financial shares despite Google potentially quitting its China operations and testimony from major Wall Street executives. Financial shares rallied even as chief executives of the four biggest surviving banks testified in Washington about mistakes ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. The executives agreed that they took too much risk and that mistakes were made, including underestimating the severity of a housing-market implosion. Economic conditions generally improved in most areas of the United States, though growth is modest and too weak to spark hiring by companies, the Federal Reserve (Fed) said in a report. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro and gained versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for February delivery fell $1.06 to $79.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold rose $7.80 to $1,137.20 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 53.51, or 0.5 percent, to 10,680.77, a new 15-month high. Merck shares jumped nearly 4 percent after they were upgraded by a brokerage. Shares of Alcoa rose 3 percent one day after tumbling 11 percent on weaker-than-expected profits. Dow gains were limited by losses in shares of Exxon Mobil and Chevron. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 9.46, or 0.8 percent, to 1,145.68. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 25.59, or 1.1 percent, to 2,307.90. Google shares fell 1 percent after the internet giant threatened to quit China due to cyber attacks and attempts to access e-mail accounts of human-rights activists. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 59.69 to 7,430.14. The American Stock Exchange composite index rose 11.23 to 1,885.57. And the Russell 2000 index rose 8.06 to 643.56.
